“I just love to stunt!” Kim Petras exclaimed during her appearance at Saks Fifth Avenue on Thursday — an understatement to anyone who witnessed her parade of colorful outfits during New York Fashion Week.

It’s hard to believe that the 26-year-old pop star, who sat front row at Marc Jacobs, Christian Siriano, Jeremy Scott and more last month, was a runway-show newbie. But she insists that the experience was “surreal,” and a long time coming at that.

Seventy percent of U.S. Hispanics follow artists on social media, a 43% higher number than that of the total population, according to “Descubrimiento Digital, the Online Lives of Latinx Consumers,” a new report from The Nielsen Company.

“Forty-four percent of U.S. Hispanics agree that they feel really good about seeing celebrities in the media who share their ethnic background,” Nielsen reports, adding that “Latinx consumers are gregarious by nature, engaging in social interaction and activities more than their non-Hispanic White counterparts.” U.S. Hispanics over-index for the amount of time they spend on social networking sites, with 52% spending 1 or more hour(s) per day (compared with 38% of non-Hispanic Whites) and 24% spending 3 or more hours per day (compared with 13%).

Articles published on Thursday claimed that Sony Music had “admitted” in a court hearing earlier this week that three tracks on “Michael,” the 2010 Michael Jackson album released posthumously by Sony’s Epic Records, contained lead vocals that were not actually by Michael Jackson — an assertion that the company denied in a statement released late Friday morning.

In the world of opera, the term “diva” is reserved for a select few. It has nothing to do with outlandish offstage behavior and everything to do with a true gift for communicating in song. It’s the Italian word for “goddess,” but when used for a performer, it’s more like someone touched by the divine for the general betterment of the rest of us.

At first, Aretha Franklin embodied that description literally, as the gospel-singing daughter of the most famous preacher of the day. But then she took it further -- to the blues, R&B, pop and even opera itself.

The Eagles’ greatest hits album has moonwalked past Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to become history’s best-selling album of all-time in the U.S.

The Recording Industry Association of America told The Associated Press on Monday that the Eagles’ album — “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975” — is now certified 38x platinum, which means sales and streams of the album have reached 38 million copies.

Take a moment, dig deep inside and ask yourself: who are your favourite musical artists? Not that buzzy hot new release, or the names you like to drop socially, but your true musical soulmates and desert island discs? The audio comfort blanket you turn to in your darkest days, or the act you’d fly halfway across the world to hear?

I’d happily wager you first encountered this music in your teens, or your early 20s, at a push. The chances you discovered your most treasured tunes after the age of 30 are precisely zilch. Or so says a new study, anyhow, which claims to have identified the exact moment listeners stop embracing new music: 27 years and 11 months. After that, our ears apparently shrivel up and we turn inwards, condemned to an endless repetitive homage to our younger selves. The so-called onset of “musical paralysis” certainly goes a long way to explaining today’s lucrative gold rush of reformed nostalgia tours, anniversary reissues and tribute acts.

The first two questions have answers. Mexico elected its next president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on July 1, and hours later the national soccer team was eliminated in the World Cup's second round on July 2.

Question three, however, remains unanswered, and may never be. But thanks to a hit TV show, anticipation for a possible reveal of what happened to Marcela Basteri, the missing mother of pop icon Luis Miguel, has become a pervasive topic of conversation on social media, radio, and news outlets throughout Mexico and much of Latin America.

Yesterday (July 9), Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander became a cover boy -- and a provocative one, at that -- when he graced PAPER magazine in a silken Versace shirt while sensually resting his head on a model’s bare thigh.

In the interview, the singer gets serious, firing shots at the passive homophobia that he still sees lingering around the music industry.

"In many ways, this is the very best time to be a gay artist ever," he says. "We wouldn't be where we are today without all the gay artists that have come before us and broken down so many barriers. But barriers aren't gone. Particularly for less privileged members of the queer community. There is this very insidious casual homophobia that exists in the fabric of everything including the music industry.”

In 1997, I missed the bus to school because I absolutely had to see the entire music video for Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).” I, of course, had no way of knowing that I was witnessing an artist — a future icon, really — who was going to completely shift how the world viewed music as an art form. At the time, I was enraptured by something I’d never seen before, and I was simply unwilling to pry my eyes away.

The fish-eyed lens. The cartoonish special effects. Costuming that appeared to be plucked from a delightfully fun future. Lyrics that exuded a bold confidence. With her first solo, career-solidifying music video, Missy Elliott became a certified force in an industry where women had to claw for the barest hint of recognition. Every hit record — “Sock It 2 Me,” “Hot Boyz,” “Get Ur Freak On,” “Gossip Folks,” “WTF (Where They From),” the list goes on — made it harder to relegate her to a single box.

To simply call Missy Elliott a rapper, even a devastatingly skilled one, ignores the fact that she is also a razor-sharp lyricist, singer, producer, dancer, and visionary. For over two decades, she’s built a legacy so rock solid that the name Missy Elliott has become synonymous with originality and brilliance.